Campaign leads to increased workplace safety in Beijing

Beijing's work safety situation has been steadily improving this year, said Liu Bin, deputy head of the capital's department of emergency management.

As part of a three-year national campaign to ensure production safety, which will run through the end of this year, Beijing has rolled out city-wide inspections. At the end of last month, it also launched a 100-day special campaign to further rule out safety hazards, Liu said at a news conference organized by the Ministry of Emergency Management on Wednesday.

To date, over 127,000 institutions and companies have been inspected, he said. Of the 16,741 safety hazards inspectors identified, 16,028, or 95.7 percent, have been rectified.

"Thanks to these actions, the number of accidents in the capital has been greatly reduced," he said.

Compared with the same period last year, the number of deadly accidents in the capital from January to July fell 20.4 percent, he noted. The number of people killed in such accidents dropped 21.3 percent.

Beijing has seen no serious accidents or especially serious accidents so far this year, he added.

In China, a serious accident refers to those that kill 10 to 29 people, seriously injure 50 to 99, or cause direct economic losses of 50 million yuan ($7.4 million) to 100 million yuan.

Accidents will be listed as especially serious if they cause even bigger casualties and economic losses.